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July 18, 2004 - Art Bell
02:50:32
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Charles Smith - China and U.S. War Scenarios
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Music From the high desert in the great American Southwest, happy
to all good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever the time zone...
You're in, indicates right now, it's close to close to AM time, actually.
All those time zones covered like a great big blanket by this show.
And we're going to have fun tonight.
Open lines, first hour, anything you want to talk about, fair game.
Unscreened, unpredictable.
Definitely unpredictable.
Open lines.
Now, next hour, we're going to talk to Charles Smith.
Charles Smith.
It's going to be fun to talk to.
You know, he's... What is he?
He's a leading expert on cyber technology and its implications for war, terrorism, and privacy.
And he's worked with all the spooks.
His character in real life sounds like Tom Clancy or something.
So, you know, this is going to be fun.
Definitely going to be fun.
He's worked in top secret stuff for the military and for a lot of people, and so naturally, we'll pry everything out of him we can, and then you always hope you get a couple of nuggets.
Oops!
I forgot about that!
My God, I signed my family over.
I forgot.
Oh no, what now?
But you know, you hardly ever get that.
But we'll have fun.
Now, looking around the world, the usual good news.
Militants sacked and burned Palestinian government offices Sunday.
The latest sign of growing anger over Yasser Arafat's decision to reach into his old guard and choose a loyalist relative as his new security chief.
Nepotism.
So they're not happy about that over there, obviously.
Rejecting a recommendation.
Now, oh, what a surprise.
The CIA director, acting director actually, has rejected the idea of an overall agency which would control his budget and his agency and have oversight over the whole smear.
He doesn't like the idea at all.
He said we don't need it, we're better since 9-11 and we don't need it.
I knew he wasn't going to like that.
A U.S.
airstrike apparently authorized, get this, authorized by the interim prime minister of Iraq Hit purported trenches and fighting positions in Fallujah.
So now, when there's a U.S.
airstrike against insurgents, it's authorized by the Iraqi government.
A wildfire jumped lines dug by firefighters.
This is bad.
Spread out of control Sunday in northern L.A.
County, forcing hundreds more families to flee their homes.
Just take off.
Residents of more than 600 homes near Santa Clarita were ordered to evacuate as a fire grew to more than 4,200 acres.
You can't imagine the terror when you see a wall of fire coming toward you.
You just can't imagine.
A spokesperson for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said the governor would not apologize for calling lawmakers girly men despite Despite criticisms from Democrats that the remark was, well, sexist and homophobic too, Schwarzenegger dished out the insult at a rally Saturday as he claimed Democrats were delaying the budget by catering to special interests.
In a moment, the... Is it wackier news or is it just a continuation of the mainstream news?
Well, anyway, in a moment.
So I'm not really sure.
Is this mainstream news?
It comes from Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country, but you know, it really came from one of some other publication.
Extreme weather continues to strike without warning around the world and global warming is front page news now in many countries.
But you wouldn't know that here in the US, would you?
In the US, we have to rely on our local weather reports and have no way of knowing really that our bizarre unseasonable weather is actually being repeated all around the world.
You only know that if you do a lot of reading.
There are major floods in areas around the world.
And Europe, which had a killing heatwave last summer, now has winter in July.
Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Taiwan, southern China, India, the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, Japan, and New Jersey!
How's that?
Have all experienced extraordinary flooding within the last two weeks.
Last week, Edmonton, Alberta experienced a Once in 200 years type storm, they say, with 45 inches of rain and hail that buried parts of that city under tons of ice.
I don't know if you saw some of the photographs from there, but it was incredible.
13 July was a rather ominous day for flooding, a ferocious thunderstorm similar in violence to the Edmonton one swept across Shanghai.
You wouldn't have heard about that, though.
Killing seven, sinking a cargo ship, In Southeast Asia, the worst monsoon flooding in memory has killed thousands and left over five million people homeless across India, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
A typhoon has killed at least 50 in the Philippines and Taiwan and left a quarter of a million homeless.
Also on the same day, the 13th, there was a 17-inch downpour in northwestern Japan, killing at least five.
Again, the rains were sudden, intense.
The flooding, intense, overcame people in low-lying areas and areas that had never experienced these kinds of floods previously.
On the same day, more than a foot of rain fell in a few hours in New Jersey.
The flooding was so fast that, as in Edmonton, people had to flee their cars to escape rising water.
The flood zone extended into Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Meanwhile, Europeans from Oslo to Budapest are having snowball fights in July.
Europeans feared a repeat of last year's killer heatwave, and Southern Europe has indeed experienced some intense heat, but most Europeans have had temperatures that are about half of what they were last year in the UK.
People are turning on their central heating now.
Elliot Frisby of the Visit Britain Tourism Board says, We don't sell Britain as a sun, sea, and sand destination.
Swedish ice cream maker, might as well laugh a little, Ingmar Folksen, is laying workers off.
Danish ice cream maker, Lenz Ferrer, says sales are 10 to 15 percent below normal.
And on and on and on and on.
You know, the bottom line here is that you just Don't hear about this.
Unless, you know, to get beyond your local weather report requires digging on shortwave, listening to, you know, BBC-type reports, that sort of thing, and then you get the big picture.
Yes, the weather is weird, but not just where you are.
All over the world.
Let me repeat for the The thicker headed out there, this has meaning.
This all means something, folks.
Mission plan to deflect asteroid.
European Space Agency officials said they plan to mount a mission to smash into a space rock.
The idea being to deflect it and study its structure.
This is all according to space.com.
The Don Quixote mission, as officials are calling it, using the traditional Spanish spelling, would help scientists figure out how to deflect and destroy any dangerous asteroid in the future that might be discovered to be on a collision course, for example, with Earth.
The mission would involve two spacecraft.
If you've ever wondered how they would do this, you know, if a rock was coming this way?
They say, in this case, Sancho and Hidalgo, Would be on different trajectories, one toward the asteroid, about 550 yards in diameter, a rock the size that would cause permanent and serious damage across a very widespread area and absolute destruction at the local level, wherever it would hit.
Sancho, you see, would arrive and orbit the asteroid for several months.
It would deploy some penetrating probes to form a seismic network on the asteroid to examine its structure Before and after its sister craft arrives, Hidalgo, you see, would come ripping along and smash into the asteroid at about 22,370 miles an hour.
That would have a definite impact.
Sancho would observe from a safe distance and then study changes in the asteroid's orbit, rotation, and structure caused by Hidalgo's impact.
In other words, It'll stand off and watch the show and hopefully transmit it back to Earth.
And I've always had this sad, sinking feeling, you know, that after smashing into a rock that was not on a collision course with Earth, somehow the unintended consequences would read something like this.
I regrettably, scientists today are informing the peoples of the Earth that an experiment intended to try and deflect A rock from Earth, even though it wasn't on a path toward Earth, has had unintended consequences.
And it's now headed toward Earth, what's left of it.
But it's well that they're doing this work, and who knows, one day Earth may indeed need an effort of this sort.
In the past we've been powerless to deflect a rock that might Well, kill many of us and provide some sort of jump in evolution or something.
Or maybe a total extinction.
Who knows?
But it's good that they're doing things, you know, that would mitigate the circumstances if a rock should be coming our way.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello.
Now, this is a time of the quickening.
It certainly is, isn't it?
Uh-huh.
Well, anyway, my name's Tom, and I'm calling from Peterborough, which is in Ontario, just sort of near Toronto there.
And my town got hit pretty hard by a big flood.
Oh, yes.
The porch on, well, the patio, I suppose, on this one restaurant floating down the street.
Yeah, well, what I'm trying to point out to the audience, sir, is that Um, although, for example, what happened in your neighborhood definitely was reported here.
That's about as far as it goes, and we don't hear about the rest of the world, and I'm trying to point out the weather is going bananas everywhere, not just where you are and where I am.
Oh, yeah.
It's insane.
Well, anyways, I, uh, I'm pretty interested in politics, I guess.
I don't know.
I'm, uh, you know, it's the election up here in Canada.
I know it's very still off, but you kind of get into that on the show.
Oh, sure.
Sure.
Before I did this program, sir, I did nothing but politics.
Is that right?
How about that?
Well, you have good discussions in that area.
Now, anyway, personally, I don't like to get bogged down in any one belief.
I like to hear what different people have to say.
So, I was wondering if I could ask you a question about civil libertarianism.
Sure.
Well, I don't know if this is really true or not.
But one of the arguments that the opponents of civil libertarianism would put up is that it's Darwinistic.
What would your thoughts be on that?
That it is Darwinistic?
Yes.
Yes, well, I would agree.
It is Darwinistic, and I'm Darwinistic.
I mean, that's the way the world works.
In other words, the strong survive.
Right?
I mean...
We can have gentle little discussions about how we wish the world was.
You and I could have those discussions, but baby it ain't that way.
The world is a dog-eat-dog world.
That's the way it works.
And from my point of view, you have to recognize the reality of what you're facing and then deal with that.
Adjust and become part of it and learn how to manipulate it in your own best way.
Understand the system you live with and proceed from a basis of understanding, right?
So that is indeed my view of how the system out there pretty much works.
Buster the Rockies, you're on the air.
Good afternoon, good evening.
There you are.
Yes, that would be me.
Yes, hi, how are you this evening?
I'm just fine.
First-time caller, long-time listener.
All right, where are you?
Lake Tahoe, California on KWOL.
And you sure had plenty of your own grief recently, didn't you, up in that area?
Well, as you know, Carson City is no more than like 55, 60 miles away.
Right.
And yes, there are a lot of problems down there.
Yes.
Well, I don't know how to put it in any other ways, but our weather is obviously undergoing a drastic alteration.
That's correct.
Let me get into the meat of this call, and it's fascinating.
A couple of weeks ago, you had a woman that called from Southern California, and she reported to you over the air, because I was listening that night, that a meteor fell to Earth and scorched Hundreds or thousands.
Do you remember that story?
Yes, yes.
She suggested that it was the ignition reason for a fire that was pretty widely known about there.
Yes, uh-huh.
Well, Art, the story that I'm about to tell you is incredible because it's related.
Okay.
Alright, here we go.
I was living down in Sacramento, California last month.
And, uh, let me just slow down.
I'm a little nervous.
You're going pretty slow already.
So you're in Sacramento.
Okay, now, on June 5th, as you know, our former president, Ronald Reagan, died.
And on that date, it made me feel very, very sad.
And so what I did, I decided, as I was living in Sacramento, that I would take my camera And go to the State Capitol.
For memory's sake, I wanted to go ahead and just take photos of what was going on that evening.
Yes, well, many of us were very sad about that.
That's right.
Very sad.
Yes, so?
Well, here's the situation.
So, I'm down in Sacramento at the State Capitol.
I've got my digital camera with me, and I was there at around 8.05 p.m.
You're going to have to get to the core of this.
Okay.
So I'm shooting the state capitol.
The flags are flying at half-mast, or half-staff.
Yes.
And I took, I guess, about ten or twelve photos during a half-hour span.
Yes.
Gonna sound incredible, but it's true.
Alright.
As I'm shooting these photos, I captured a UFO.
Good.
Alright, now here is what you do.
Post-haste.
This was a digital camera, right?
Digital camera, yes indeed.
Alright, so you write down my name and address, which I'm going to give you right now, and you send me a copy of the photograph.
And if it is startling, We will not only re-interview you, but we will get the photograph up for all to see.
Now, this radio program is nothing if not open, and the whole idea of the program is to share information on subjects exactly like this.
So if you've got a really good rendition of a UFO, send it to Art Bell at Minespring.com or Art Bell at AOL.com.
Include the story that goes with it and your phone number, and we'll go from there.
So if you've got a hot one, we're all over it like a cheap soup.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Yes, hello?
Yes.
Hi, this is Wade.
I'm calling from Louisa, Kentucky.
Listening to you on 1100 AM, Alec Cleveland.
Yes, sir.
Okay, I guess I've got two or three things for you.
First off, you were talking about how all the weather was messed up, and I just happen to remember many years ago, This is back, the exact 1986, Dan Rather did a report on the evening news of an environmental report predicting that within a hundred years, the environmental changes would allow palm trees to grow in Kansas.
And, uh, our weather here, you know, it's almost turned tropical within the last couple years.
It rains usually every two out of three days, a lot of times hard cloud bursts.
And, uh, it's been detrimental to the A lot of the local small farmers around here.
Well, we're not alone.
The point I was really trying to make was, it's happening everywhere, and you just don't hear about it.
Yeah.
Since you're going to have Charles Smith, I guess probably one of the first things you're going to talk to him about is the article he wrote about Bob Bigelow's company negotiating with the Chinese about that inflatable space station.
Yeah, you'd bet your bottom dollar we're going to talk to him about that.
Bob Bigelow is a friend of mine.
I sent you the article.
And I know that he's got an aerospace company up and going and he's got some real serious projects underway.
Bob Bigelow doesn't kid around.
Yeah.
He's the real McCoy, so sure we're going to talk about it.
Okay.
Also, have you read this new book that's come out?
It's been written by a consultant to the FBI.
His name's Paul Williams.
It's titled, El Salmo's Revenge.
Yeah, I've heard about the book.
Man, there is more stuff running around on the internet about that right now.
about the talking about only the al-qaeda nuclear presence but also
the nuclear presence by the russian military officers
uh... inside of the time there is more stuff up running around on the internet
uh... about that right now in fact uh... there's an internet piece running around
right now indicating that last week this is just internet folks so bear with me
Last week, the U.S.
was under direct nuclear threat, and according to some, we almost lost a city.
You been reading about that, sir?
I've heard rumors.
I heard there was a nuclear threat in Europe as well.
Yeah.
Well, right now that's all they are, and I want to be very clear about that.
Listen, we've got to go.
We're at the half-hour mark here.
Okay.
Ask him about that Chinese sub that's been deployed that we didn't even know about.
Hey, listen, we're going to have the phone lines open, so try to get in and ask him yourself.
But if not, I'll give it a best shot.
All right.
Thanks a lot, Art.
Have a good evening.
You too.
So, we're going to do open lines to the top of the hour, and then, indeed, we're going to talk to Charles Smith, and we will ask him about the Bigelow Project.
that that's headlined incidentally one read a little bit about it on the
coast goes to a m dot com website right now the
the the
Please You
Oh Oh
You don't have to shout Oh
Yeah Easy
Get up out the lamp and all your sorrows...
To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area codes The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033.
From west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
International callers may reach Art by calling your in-country Sprint Access number, pressing
option 5, and dialing toll free, 800-893-0903.
From coast to coast, and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM, with
Art Bell.
Israel, in Mercedes, Texas, wants to know what's the picture in the webcam.
The picture in the webcam, Israel, is my home.
Or part of it, anyway.
That's where I live, out here in the middle of the desert.
And Robert, in Port Orchard, Washington, follows up with, Hey, Art, your webcam has revealed that you have a crop circle formation in your yard.
Love the view.
Hope they haven't beamed you up before air time.
Well, obviously, they have not.
And it's not really a crop circle, it's an effort at what you do out here in the desert instead of growing a lawn like people who live in places where lawns grow.
They don't grow in the desert unless you grow them yourself.
And we have chosen not to, so that is what we have done instead, and it's made out of pure rock.
Sound of a helicopter taking off.
By the way, that webcam picture is one of the ones I took hanging out the door of a helicopter.
Actually, hanging out where there was no door.
It's the only way you get a good, clean picture.
Now, the idea there is that we live in the desert.
Now, you can see we have a few pine trees, but aside from that, when you live in the desert, you ought not grow grass.
I mean, that's not what the desert is all about.
Yes, it can be done, but it's changing the native environment.
And so instead, we decorated with Rocks!
First time caller line, you are on the air.
Hello.
And what is your belief on our Supreme Being?
Is there a God?
I think so, yes.
To answer number two first, I think there is a God, yes.
Yes, I rather do.
A Supreme Being.
So, there you are.
And there's also spiders, one which just decided was going to crawl across my desk.
That's another part of the natural part of the desert, by the way, folks.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hi, this is James in Southeast Texas.
Hi, James.
Hi.
You know, you were talking about the weather and everything, and we've been told for a long time that we're due for a hurricane here in Southeast Texas.
Yes, probably.
They usually, you know, a certain percentage of them enter the Gulf and then come up and whack Texas.
Yeah, well, we haven't had one in, oh, nine, ten years.
And they've been telling us every year it's coming, it's coming.
Yeah, well, one year, that'd be right.
Yeah, well, I would like to tell you and your listeners, fear not, for climate change has been happening since the beginning of life on this planet.
Absolutely true.
And we're going to survive it.
Well, I'm sure the dinosaurs probably said that sort of thing to themselves, too.
Look how big we are!
What the hell could bother us?
We tower over even the trees!
Ha ha ha ha!
Kaboom!
Well, that was an asteroid, wasn't it?
I heard you talking about Asteroid earlier.
I'm sure they have that attitude though, right?
I got your idea.
Climate change, it comes slowly and we'll be able to handle it.
Well, hopefully you're right.
The indications are, sir, that the rapidity of the climate change is increasing exponentially.
It's getting pretty bad.
And you're right about one thing.
We'll survive it.
We need to start making adjustments in view of how quickly it's changing.
And that means adjustments in where we grow things and recognize what's happening so that we can keep feeding people.
That's really important.
And I think, yeah, we've done that since the beginning of humanoid standing upright.
We figured out on our own how to do things.
And we don't need a government bureaucracy to figure it out for us.
We can figure it out on our own.
But what I'd like to say is that Don't be scared.
It's just a part of being on this planet.
As the sun changes, our atmosphere will change, and we will change with it.
Yes, indeed.
You're right about that.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Fear not change, folks.
But on the other hand, don't keep your head in the sand, or it'll kick you in the butt while you're down there inhaling grains.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hello Art, this is Brett listening on KCRG AM Radio in Marion, Iowa.
I just wanted to call about the remote viewing last night and the experience that I had.
Well, studying the martial arts and I study a style called Ling Kong Jing.
I called you last night about it and what it has to do with it's kind of a Tai Chi and what happened was while I was meditating I found myself outside of my body and walking around in my house, but I could still see myself standing there, and I was wondering what you thought, whether that could have been a remote viewing.
No, you had an out-of-body experience.
Right, and it kind of freaked me out, and I really haven't been practicing the art since.
Well, these are the doors that we open when you meditate.
You put yourself in a receptive state for that sort of thing, and an out-of-body and OBE is Absolutely!
One of the things that might happen to you in that state.
Now, I've had a number of guests on OBE's and they all insist it's quite harmful.
Harmless, excuse me.
Yes, they insist it's harmless and you might do well to read one of their books or listen to a show on that subject because they claim you can control it and get very comfortable with it and enjoy it.
Well, I've been having, like, why I started studying this was because of the psychokinetic energy that we're able to transfer through our bodies.
And, you know, I've had really good results with moving paper, moving, I even moved a golf ball across the table, but without dodging it, you know, I mean, I was probably too far away from it.
You moved a golf ball?
Yes, sir.
I moved a golf ball across a glass table.
My mom was freaking out.
You have a very bright future, I would say.
Well, and I'd only been studying that form for like three months, and people are going, man, you're getting some really good results.
Can you do it anytime you want?
I can move paper anytime.
I can move paper anytime I want to.
Golf ball is a little harder to do.
It takes a lot of energy out of you when you're doing it.
What I've found is that the magnetic force of the Earth really does play a part.
When it's a new moon, it's really hard to do it.
When it's a full moon, it's a lot easier to do it.
The magnetic force of the Earth is what I'm feeling that I'm actually manipulating.
I don't know what you're doing, but if you can move a golf ball and you can do it on demand, even if it's reliably on a full moon, You have a very bright future.
You will be on television programs.
You will be studied by many scientists, if not dissected.
Yes, you have a, well, that wouldn't be a bright future, would it?
I don't know.
If you had such power, and I've tried, God knows I've tried, I've taken pens and various objects, set them on end so that just a whisper, a touch of a force would blow it down.
And you would say, oh my God, I did it.
And I have put all of my brain power, limited albeit as it may be, I have never so much as seen it wiggle.
Nothing.
And I have sat here and poured and poured what I have into pushing the very top of it.
I'm sure a lot of you have tried these experiments.
But if so many as one of you, or two of you, or ten of you can actually do that, Reliably, and demonstrate that, then that's a biggie.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hi there, Art.
Hello.
Welcome from Northwest Montana.
Uh-huh.
Long-time listener, though.
Yes, ma'am.
Um, just a comment.
You were talking about the nuclear possibilities of Osama doing something?
Yes.
I'm sitting here just thinking how nice it is to live in rural America.
You know, what are they going to blow up?
A mountain?
No, probably New York, Washington, the usual targets.
You know, I know it's kind of... Sometimes Las Vegas, I worry about that.
It's just 65 miles from me, and they, you know, the terrorists absolutely hate Las Vegas.
I mean, it's the... It's in the city.
Oh, it's the center of capitalistic greed, and, you know, the movies destroy it, so why not the terrorists?
So I worry a little bit.
No, but I do laugh about it because it's like, you know, I can't get a Starbucks, but you know, hey, I might not get blown up.
But just on the other gentleman that was just talking about telekinesis.
Yes.
I am three quarters Scott and it runs in our family.
What does?
Telekinesis?
No, we're psychic, but we're not psychic enough that we can actually do anything with it.
It's like if I sit in front of a TV and watch the lotto numbers being picked.
Yes.
I usually get four out of six right, but it's like five seconds before they're drawn.
I can never get it when it's slow enough to go to the ticket booth and get a ticket.
Yeah, when you're standing in the store about to get the ticket, that's the time for the talent to emerge.
No, it's always just a few seconds before it happens.
It's like I can flip it a few seconds before it happens, but never sooner than that.
Well, you need to fine-tune that a little.
Okay.
Well, I love your program.
So do I. I love doing it.
Thank you very much.
Okay, bye-bye.
Take care.
Yeah.
It's fun to do.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hello.
Going once, going twice.
Gone.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hey there, Art.
Hey!
When you're doing your telekinesis, do you believe in the back of your mind that you can move that object, or do you think that... Oh, listen, sir, I'm telling you, with every, every atom of my being, I have sat and concentrated on just creating the tiniest bit of force that would knock it over.
No.
I'm not questioning whether you've tried.
I'm questioning whether in the back of your mind you believe that, oh, I'm trying really hard, but I don't believe that I can do it.
You want the honest answer?
Yeah.
Probably, probably in the back of my mind, I don't think I can do it.
See, that's what I'm thinking is the problem.
There's nothing in there between you and your caller.
Yeah, well, maybe.
I suppose we're all conditioned to believe that we cannot do these things, right?
And I suppose, then, that if you took a four-year-old and told him he could do it, and a four-year-old had never considered nor tried nor didn't know he could not do it, maybe he could.
But me?
I'm 59, so I've been conditioned.
I know I'm not supposed to be able to do that stuff, so maybe that's it.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hi.
This is Olin in Culver City, California.
Hello, Olin.
Hello there.
If the solar mass ejections cannot go through five feet of dirt, but the mass ejections are reducing the Earth's magnetic field, then perhaps the orbiting charged particles in the Van Allen belts are getting blown away, and the Van Allen belts are what's generating the magnetic field.
So I think that If it's true that our shields are being blown down each time a mass ejection hits them... Well, now, I'm not sure that's fair.
Right now, our shields are doing just spiffy.
I mean, they do get compressed a little when they get hit by a CME, but they rebound like a rubber ball.
So, so far, so good.
This is just one of those things where It could happen if we had a tremendous number just battering it again and again and again.
We're not there right now, so don't sweat it.
Well, I'm sure glad to hear that, because a year or so ago, the sun reversed its magnetic field, and I was thinking that if our... It was actually more than a year.
Oh, well, a couple years ago.
But if our magnetic field is getting blown away now, the sun might induce a reverse field if ours gets destroyed.
Well, I don't know about that either.
Although, again, you know, the article last night and from last week certainly was interesting, indicating that our magnetic field is in the process and is accelerating toward a change.
That's pretty wild, and I'm not sure we really understand what would happen if we got a polar flip.
You know, if it went quickly, I don't know, you hear stories, 300 mile an hour winds, this, that, but we don't really know for sure, because we've never recorded it happening.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Hi there.
Hi there.
How are you tonight?
Quite well, thank you.
And yourself?
Very good, thank you.
I wanted to comment on last night's caller.
Was it Major Danes that was speaking about remote viewing?
He would have been last night's guest, yes.
Already, and the connection between the unusual weather right now that the whole earth is experiencing.
Yes.
I would take the whole thing from a spiritual point of view.
I don't know what your particular spiritual beliefs are, but I am a Christian and I sincerely believe that the Bible tells us about the Things that will happen as the world's drawing to a close.
So you think what's happening right now is biblical?
Yes, I do.
But it's not like something immediately is going to happen because shortly before his death, Jesus warned his disciples that one way that you could tell that the end was drawing near would be specifically plagues, salmons, earthquakes.
The sort of things that are going on right now.
Well, you can almost hear the seals popping, my dear.
Well, that would be a joyful day for me.
Really?
I understand that it would be for you, but for a lot of other people it would not.
I understand, I really do, those who have the faith.
Can you imagine that?
I guess for a fully integrated, fully believing Fundamentalist Christian, it would be joyful, but there would be some pretty horrific things going down, and I guess she'd be jumping up and down going, yes!
This is it!
Wild Card Line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hi Art, this is Barbara calling you, hearing you I should say, on 95.1.
Oh, you're in Brumpton.
Thank you very much, KNYE.
I am.
Listen, I wonder, you made reference last night To an email you had from one of your fellow hammers out here.
Not hammers, Barbara.
Not hammers.
Ham operators.
Ham operators.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Anyway, something about the radiation monitors on his property having gone crazy.
That's right.
Yesterday morning.
That's right.
Now I apologize because I was kind of sleepy when I was listening to you and I wanted to make sure I heard you correctly.
You did.
Did you say four to five rims?
You know, I don't have it in front of me right now, but it seems like it was that.
You know, he said, up into the unsafe category.
Yeah, and I distinctly remember you not saying millerims, it was rims.
Well, I read it as it was.
And reading, well, it's just weird because I work outside with horses, and we were outside at that time, and yesterday was just a really strange day because both myself and my boss We just had a really, really, really bad day.
Both of us felt really cruddy all day long for no reason.
Understood.
And when I heard that last night, I thought, oh, this is great.
But pardon my ignorance, if our atmosphere is supposed to be protecting us and stuff, I mean, is it just that we're in The exact right place and time as these coronal things are happening?
Well, that's one part of it, yes.
There has been a total barrage.
I mean, really incredible from the sun.
What's going on right now is pretty wild.
Well, I know.
You've been talking about that and it just, like I said, does kind of alarm me being as I am outside so much.
Do you have a computer?
Yeah.
Go to the NOAA space weather site.
Go to the NOAA space weather site and kind of Teach yourself a little bit what those charts mean and it's really interesting and they've got pictures of the sun you can look at and you can follow all of this along and that's what I would suggest you do.
And when we have days when there are very large solar flares you know my advice would be play it safe and spend the better part of the day inside.
Well that's normally what we do you know in our wonderful desert out here especially when it's so hot you know we start real early in the morning We're done within two, three hours, and we don't go back until five, six o'clock at night, you know, to take care of everything else we have to do.
By the way, tell everybody, since you're listening to KNYA 95.1 here in Pahrump, the radio station, is it cool to have this so clear in FM?
Isn't it wonderful?
You are the only station we can clearly get out here.
You know, we love our desert and all that stuff.
Wild weather, though, we're having, Yes.
And tell me, call me crazy, but isn't it getting a lot more humid out here?
Uh, well, we're in the... Yes, but... No, I know monsoons.
I know that.
Actually, that's fairly normal.
I got to run, Barb.
But yes, uh, monsoon season is here, sort of.
It kind of came, and then sort of went, and it'll be back again, I'm sure.
All right.
When we get back in a moment or ten, Charles Smith will be here, and it's going to be a fun interview.
Believe me.
He, uh...
He's worked for all the spooks, with the spooks, and we've got a lot of questions.
charles that right after the news
the the
The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033.
From west of the Rockies, call Art at 800-618-8255.
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Free 800-893-0903. From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to
Coast AM with Art Bell.
And there's nothing actually even remotely like it in the nighttime.
This program is whatever it is, it's many things, but it certainly is different.
Coming up, Charles Smith, cyber war columnist.
Charles R. Smith is one of America's leading experts on cyber technology and its implications for war, terrorism, privacy, and Every way technology interacts with our lives.
He is an exclusive columnist for Newsmax.com.
Don't you love Newsmax?
As its cyber war expert.
That's pretty good.
And is currently president and CEO of Softwar.
That would be his own consulting company.
Very Mars-like here.
A lot of war.
Mr. Smith's life sounds, in fact, like a character in a Tom Clancy novel.
I love Clancy's work.
He received the U.S.
government top-secret clearance as a top-level computer engineer for EDS.
There, he was assigned to work with the U.S.
Army on logistic projects during the Cold War.
He currently provides security software for medical information services and hospitals, encryption software for secure email, direct communications, electronic commerce, and internet website services during the Past ten years, Smith has also become a noted investigative journalist, so he's right in the middle of all this.
This should be a fun interview coming right up.
Interesting.
Charles, I'm noting, because I get these little computer messages from listeners, that your website is already jamming up and slowing down and becoming nearly impassable.
Welcome to the program.
Yeah, I've already experienced that myself.
We do that here.
Yes, I'm afraid so.
Well, what can I say?
All you can say is, look, it'll get better later.
Wait till some of these people go to bed.
The bandwidth will open and the door will open and you'll get in.
Well, my ISP is also likely to send me a note eventually.
A note of protest.
Large question marks and exclamation points.
Uh-huh.
You owe us five million dollars.
All right.
Gosh, you really have done a very great deal of stuff.
I'm guessing a fair amount of it classified, eh?
Some of it, yes.
Some of it, no.
so could we start with the classified stuff uh... look so will go down this road instead uh...
China.
China, the nation.
We're going to talk about China a little bit because, you know, there's this picture of what the Bigelow aerospace people are doing on the front of Coast to Coast AM and it's suggesting here that you fear or have concerns that China may use what Bigelow's developed for military purposes.
Well, you know, I think the real point of the article that I wrote on this was that the personnel that the Bigelow officials were talking to from a company called Great Wall Industries has been previously sanctioned for passing ballistic missile technology Great Wall Industries is a division of China Army Inc.
To be frank, it is owned and operated completely by the Chinese military.
In fact, that was one of those little pictures that we have up on the web page, was a DIA document that I obtained by the Freedom of Information Act.
It was pretty badly tore up, so I recreated it in A gift format, which essentially is a chart showing the direct connections between companies and the Central Communist Party Committee, as well as the CMC, which is the Central Military Command.
And Great Wall Industries is very well known as a provider of space military assets, space-based equipment, Rocket systems, ballistic missile systems, they are a prime contractor in their... Wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Generally, most of the Great Wall Industries people are Chinese Army officers.
In fact, one of the things I left out of the article was Lieutenant Colonel Liu Chaoying, who managed to get in to see Bill Clinton through Johnny Chung.
was formally a Great Wall director and she of course also made it into Senator Kerry's office working for China Aerospace which is one of the parent companies of Great Wall Industries.
Not a bit of this should be a surprise to anybody.
I mean China is a communist country, a hard core communist country with just very small sort of, oh I don't know, Well, in this case, we're going a little bit further.
areas that are free trade ish kind of but nobody should be fooled these are
comments course so so everything the industry there and all the rest of its
subject to government whim
well uh... in this case we're going a little bit further and i can make it
direct that there's there you can distinguish between
uh... industries run by the ccp uh... which is the central communist party as compared to
the cnc which military command and and uh... as we're talking about
companies that profits are directly plowed back into the army
used for military assets to produce uh... new technology
uh... weapons systems uh... also to line these with bank accounts of chinese
Yeah, I'm sure all of that's right.
And I'm sure that, and really I don't care, even in any company in China, Any company in China is subject to the whim, ultimately, of the government.
I mean, if they want a piece of it or whatever, they're going to get it.
Well, once again, what I'm trying to distinguish here is, you know, there are corporations that do operate at the whim of the government, but their profits are not plowed into military assets or to purchase Military equipment to basically buy missiles pointed at you and me.
I can make a distinguishing difference between those two.
One of the biggest problems, and again this is outlined by many of the documents that I've obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, was showing we have a great deal of difficulty negotiating arms deals especially arms limitations and trade deals with the
Chinese, because the Chinese generals who run the corporations
that produce these arms are also the ministers in the government that
negotiate limitations on those arms.
So you don't have a conflict of interest law here. You can be a Chinese
general, you can be the CEO of a company, and you can be a minister in their government all at the
same time.
Yeah. Well, so anyway, again, you know, if it's critical to the Chinese national
military effort, the Chinese government is going to be able to tap anybody in
China on the shoulder and say, give me a It comes down to that, right?
Yeah, even if you're producing things like toys or brake parts for cars or... Yes, whatever.
So anyway, with regard to the Bigelow thing there, you know, that's been Robert Bigelow has been trying to get a private effort, like many others, into space, and has been trying to produce something that maybe even a hotel.
I know he's considered a lot of different ideas, and I'm sure he'd rather be talking to an American company.
Charles, why do you think American companies aren't jumping on this?
Well, there are a couple of reasons why American companies aren't jumping on this.
One of those reasons is basically because the commercial applications are relatively narrow.
This is as compared to several of the military organizations who are looking at it going, well I like this idea, we could set up a space station.
The point, I think, driving behind this was not necessarily his effort to drive a commercial space operation.
What was of great concern was his statements that he would like to open up with the Chinese, in particular, and that we needed to continue to seek to work with them in space-based or joint operations Even over and above the restrictions from the State Department and the Commerce Department and, of course, the Defense Department.
Well, we are pretty closed to all of this, aren't we?
And NASA kind of has the only game in town right now.
Yes and no.
You have to recall that one of the reasons why we're in the predicament that we're in was because space technology Export controls were transferred during the 1990s to the Commerce Department, and the Commerce Department basically looked the other way while extensive military technology was passed.
Corporations such as the Hughes Corporation, Laurel, and Lockheed Martin ended up paying huge fines for basically illegal operations that greatly improved the Chinese ballistic missile force As well as added directly to their military capabilities.
Well, it's really hard to understand.
I mean, I understand things right down to video games, for example, have processors in them that could be used, I don't know, in conjunction with other things to put missiles right on target, that sort of thing.
You know, technology marches on and how you limit it Is one tough road to hoe when you're trying to be commercial in one way?
You have to look at, for example, I have some documents I obtained again by FOIA on Hughes.
The chairman of Hughes, C. Michael Armstrong, wanted the transfer from the State Department and Defense Department to Commerce Department, and one of the items on the list was Radiation-hardened computer chips.
Now, you know, granted, computer chips that go into your Nintendo or into your laptop sitting there in front of you is one thing, but a radiation-hardened chip has a relatively narrow use in the commercial field.
Generally, radiation-hardened computer chip technology is used in deep space probes, some space-based assets, And of course, in nuclear weapons, it is a critical portion of nuclear combat and thermonuclear warfare.
Without them, you're not going to fight anything short of using a clockwork system.
The Hughes Corporation, in their lobbying effort, was able to get that technology transferred to the Commerce Department.
As a result, the Chinese were not only able to obtain radiation-hardened They were able to obtain the technology to manufacture them, and the general result is, for example, their first line ballistic missiles, the DF-5s, were previously literally clockwork mechanisms.
They are bore-sighted, from China to the United States, pre-aimed.
Now, with the radiation-hardened computer technology, They no longer have to bore sight them, they can fire them at will with precise accuracy.
Charles, so that the American people might know, if you do know, what is the size of the arsenal that the Chinese have in ready status that could hit the United States, launched from where they are?
You're talking about 30 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 20 of them armed with 1-5 megaton thermonuclear warheads, And the other ten armed with about three thermonuclear warheads at 100 kilotons each.
Bad, bad, bad.
Well, here's the twist.
You know, in comparison to our arsenal, obviously that's small.
But the Chinese military has made it very clear that, okay, all we have to do is use half of them, say 15, and target, oh, 20 of your major cities.
You're talking about anywhere between 80 and 120 million American casualties.
Absolutely.
It's a horror.
Well, true, but again, out of their own document.
They've made it clear they will use them.
Well, now there's a different question entirely.
The North Koreans might, in my opinion, be crazy enough to do it.
Perhaps in South Korea, perhaps a demonstration, perhaps even an effort at us.
They might be crazy enough to do that.
But I think we're banking on the fact that Chinese, like the Russians, aren't suicidal.
They're not crazy.
And do you think that premise is going to continue to be sound, or do you not think it's sound?
Well, you see, once again, this is something that's gotten the United States and China in trouble before.
is a complete misunderstanding of each other, especially in the realm of warfare.
The OCMC documents I obtained, and these were transferred to us by a Chinese army officer who was so alarmed at reading them that he actually smuggled them out to the West.
One, they made it clear that they had already threatened the US government with nuclear warfare.
Yeah, especially if we get in their way over Taiwan.
And two, it also made clear that they're willing to step off with a million troops on Taiwan, and would be quite willing to take a 10 to 1 loss rate.
They don't believe that we could suffer 100,000 casualties in less than 90 days in our military forces, and have the political will to continue.
The same thing applied in the point We're talking about the potential for a nuclear exchange.
All right, let's hear it.
150 million people is nothing.
You mentioned Taiwan.
It's the most likely point of contention the West will have with China.
I bet we both agree on that at least.
Absolutely.
Okay.
If the Chinese were to pick their moment and they were to attack Taiwan, taking it over and occupying it.
What exactly do you think the United States would do, if anything?
Well, you can actually see what we're doing right now.
There's an operation called Summer Pulse 04.
I'm sure you might have seen some of the rumors circulating on the net.
I have, yes.
It's a carrier battle group.
Yes, it's a show of the flag and force, yes.
The Chinese military doctrine An analysis indicated that the United States would not be able to mobilize more than three battle groups within one month, and that only one would be able to arrive on the scene, and they designed their offensive operations to deal with that.
The fact that we were able to mobilize seven, and then mass them in such a short and very dramatic period of time, has actually thrown a big monkey wrench and embarrassed several Chinese generals who said basically, oh, the Americans can't do that.
Back to my question.
What would we do, as I'm pointing out, is first and foremost, the Navy would mobilize our carrier battle groups in an attempt to save Taiwan before it is overwhelmed by an invasion You would have the Air Force with their B-2s, the 117s, B-52s flying out of Guam and Okinawa.
But you have to look at what we've got facing us on the other side.
The Chinese Air Force, although large, is somewhat obsolete.
What is not obsolete is the 600 tactical ballistic missiles that they do possess.
Those missiles are extremely accurate, thanks to American technology.
Is it your view the Chinese would not hesitate to shoot at our carriers and at our planes, and they would not hesitate to go nuclear?
Yeah, and in fact the last three US government reports that have been issued, one by the Defense Department, one by the joint US-China, Uh, Relations Commission and another by Richard Fisher have all indicated that the Chinese would probably start out with a nuclear weapon designed to disable our electronic systems.
Ah, the EMP pulse weapon.
Alright, Charles, hold on.
We're at the bottom of the hour.
We'll be right back.
Pretty heavy stuff we're into.
Always a surprise, but that's what this program is all about.
Mark Bell.
I'm.
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line is area code 775-727-1222. To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll-free
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From coast to coast, and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM, with Art Bell.
Well, I'll tell you what, this is almost like at games times.
To Charles Smith, my guest tonight, but no less scary.
Not by any means.
We're discussing China, its threat, its intentions, and I suppose a possible future.
we'll get right back to it okay are back with charles smith
This is really serious stuff.
So, Charles, there are a lot of countries with nuclear capability.
China would be probably Number three, I would think, in the world.
And they certainly have the ability to destroy many of our cities, kill millions of our people.
But, of course, that would be a full-blown nuclear war.
We would retaliate en masse.
And I would think they couldn't think of it in any other way as suicidal.
So even if, you know, the old we can lose ten to your one thing, We could still make it totally suicidal for them.
We could destroy China so it would be unlivable for generations to come.
What about the MAD scenario?
Mutual Assured Destruction.
I mean, it should have some effect on the Chinese.
Well, you know, here's a couple of points to go against it.
Okay.
Let's say the Chinese strike.
They go for Taiwan.
They take out Los Angeles.
Pearl Harbor, etc. and caused multiple millions of casualties here.
Yes.
Yes. If we retaliate en masse, in other words, kill 600, 700, 800 million people in one single strike,
uh-huh, we may not actually stop the war.
And the other issue I think that goes with that is we'd be retaliating against basically helpless civilians.
And that's one of those political thoughts.
You know, the real key, in fact one of the real deterrents, has not been, oh, we'll blow all of your cities up.
It's we'll come after you.
And we're talking to the Chinese leadership in particular.
Well, we would.
I mean, we would hit their command and control and military first.
And the other targets, of course, would be secondary.
But it's part of the threat.
Well, you see, again, that's where we get into this scenario.
If we attempt to retaliate on their population, when you're looking at 1.5 billion people, they'd be perfectly happy to trade one for one, or even two for one, or three for one.
Yeah, but that might not be the threat.
What I'm saying is the threat might be, we will utterly turn you to blinkin' glass, you know?
Well, if we do that, then we're also going to be left breathing those remains.
That's a fact.
Uh, correct.
Uh, you know, what we're talking about here is, say, 10 to 15 nuclear weapons used in theater and out of theater.
Now, you know, we're going back to this, is it limited or is it mutually assured destruction?
If they strike with 10 to 15, Would we retaliate and completely devastate their country, even if it ends up killing most of us in the process?
Probably not.
Let's examine the question, and let's use our current president as an example, because that's reality.
We have George Bush in office right now.
If Los Angeles were destroyed, along with Honolulu or the Hawaiian Islands in general, or anything along those lines, one of our major cities were destroyed by an identifiable foreign power, Like China, then you are in nuclear war.
And how could George Bush make any other decision, explain that to me, other than complete retaliatory decimation of China?
How could he make any other political decision?
Alright, if he goes with option A, waste them all, you're not getting the guys dug in the holes.
Okay, we're not taking out the PLA.
I don't know.
I mean, we've got big, bad nukes that are designed... We've got a big arsenal, but what we're talking about is, let's take out their cities.
Okay?
If you go that route, all you're doing is doing exactly what the Chinese military leadership would like you to do.
If, on the other hand, you go with option B, Which is precise strikes, some of them probably non-nuclear, aimed strictly at their leadership.
That's precisely the thing they fear the most.
I don't think the American people would regard that as a sufficient retaliation for taking out, let's say, Los Angeles.
That's correct.
Again, what we're talking about here is, would you prefer The satisfactory result of, say, killing 20 or 30 or 40 million innocent people who have not really done anything, or would you prefer to take out the military command structure, perhaps killing no more than 10 or 15 thousand and suddenly finding their country out of the war?
Well, I suppose any nuclear war would have It's opening salvos, which would be intended to be limited, perhaps in the manner you just described, but most scenarios have it going from that to, for various reasons, we could discuss all-out nuclear war very quickly.
Yeah, and again, having played these games, you've got to remember I set up and erected war games for the military during the 80s.
Simulating both conventional as well as thermonuclear and biological and chemical war.
Yes.
One of the very first problems that we found was that our military commanders were extremely uncomfortable at fighting nuclear war.
They had a tendency to fry more of their own systems than the opposition in some cases.
Well, to that I would say, good.
I hope everybody is very nervous about the prospect of nuclear war.
Precisely.
On the other hand, when you're looking at an opponent, in this case, like the Chinese General Yang Gangkai, General Yang was number two commander, is the number two commander in the Chinese military.
He made a very open statement that if we got in their way over Taiwan, that they would be perfectly willing to vaporize Los Angeles.
I recall that.
Now, the kick to this is General Xiong was promoted after he made that statement.
He is now head of Chinese military intelligence.
So, the twist to that is, is the absolute doctrine that we're talking about.
China's a very big country.
They believe they could absorb our blow.
Even though you and I, looking at 1,000 ballistic missiles sitting in our holes over here, know full well that we could basically turn China into the dark side of the moon, they, on the other hand, are fully aware that we would be politically inclined not to do that, especially if they used one or two in an opening salvo.
Well, they know we could turn their land into unlivable land.
They do know that.
Now, they have to imagine the possibility that we would do that and I'm sure that we have in some way communicated to them the way we think a nuclear conflict would go and why it's a really bad idea.
Alright, once again here we'll go through the scenario.
They take out Los Angeles, Honolulu, Uh-huh.
We retaliate.
We send 800 missiles headed their way.
Uh-huh.
They turn around at that point and fire the remainder of their missiles.
Of course.
Very large warheads.
Yes.
And now we have a exchange here.
We kill, say, nearly a billion of them and they totally waste North America.
See how this works?
On the other hand, at the end of one They've taken Los Angeles and Honolulu and decimated those, as well as Guam and Okinawa locally.
That's where they look at us and say, wouldn't you like to negotiate?
Or do you want to go ahead and throw one at us, in which case we'll throw everything we've got?
No, at that point, you see, that's the problem with that whole thing.
I don't think that George Bush, for example, would negotiate for one second.
I think he would obliterate China.
Absolutely obliterated.
And I understand the repercussions for the planet itself and for us, but no, you can't start doing that without rapidly going all the way.
Well, here's the counter-doctrine.
You go ahead and you throw your missiles, they detect them, And they threw the remaining missiles on their side, okay?
And you know what the result is of that.
Well, remember to use them or lose them, Doctor.
Everybody's going to be thinking about that.
Well, you've got to remember they're new missiles that they've deployed.
The DF-31s are mobile ballistic missiles.
Right.
They are on the back of a Chinese SUV about the size of a semi-trailer.
So, they will be dispersed, they will be moving, they will be extremely difficult to target.
You know, let's back up a long way for just a second, because I think this might be important.
When you're discussing Taiwan, we, for the purpose of this discussion, made the assumption that we would fight to the death, to full nuclear war, if necessary, to protect Taiwan.
I'm not that convinced.
Well, you see, once again, here we've got Are you?
Well, again, this is what I'm referring to.
We may not have an alternative because the way that the Chinese have structured their military force is centered around a first-strike doctrine.
In order for them to win, they will have to prevent carriers from entering the South China Sea and Taiwan area generally.
They would have to isolate Japan They would have to destroy our bases in Okinawa and Guam and perhaps Pearl Harbor as well.
And therein is the long look, okay?
This is much like the same doctrine that the Imperial Japanese looked at at the beginning of World War II.
If we're going to go south, if we're going to control the straits in Malacca between the Indian Ocean And the Pacific Ocean, we're going to have to knock out our opponent first.
And we're not the only ones involved in this.
For example, the Japanese have very tight military structure, as well as a political agreement with Taiwan in reference to defense.
In order for the Chinese to carry out such an operation, it's quite likely they would also attack the Japanese mainland as well.
So, overall, what I'm referring to here is there is an alternative.
Let's say, you know, I'm the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and I'm looking at you and I'm saying, yeah, we've already taken this first hit in their opening round, but if you let me fight the war my way, we'll win.
And how would that go?
Well, basically what I would be doing would be targeting Tomahawk conventional cruise missiles It's specifically designed to take out their hierarchy.
And therein is our deterrent, and it's been played.
We've looked at their military leaders, their political leaders, and said, look, we're not going to bother taking out your city, but we're going to take you out, your family out, your pets, your dogs, your front yard, and wherever you go, whatever hole you dig in, every time you stick your nose up, something's going to come flying in to take you out.
That's given them something to think about.
Now, as the military commanders, as we've played this game, if you disable their command and control structure, then their military coordination falls apart, they become easy targets, we win in the South China Sea, we prevail over Taiwan, their government ends up being literally either non-existent or overthrown, and boom, we're done.
Let me ask you a question about their command and control.
In the United States, for a time, our subcommanders, for example, ran silent, deep, and independently, to a degree.
They had some autonomy.
Now, the Russians, on the other hand, were famous for always having an extreme amount of control over anything, you know, any N-word product of their military.
Extreme control.
What is the Chinese Construction in that area like.
Do they have the same sort of control the Russians had?
Precisely.
And this is classic totalitarian regime.
In military structure, you have a political control or political arm.
The Politburo has their own troops.
Yes.
Those guys actually oversee much of the nuclear weapons technology.
In fact, that's one of those little interesting side notes.
The way the Chinese manufacture their missiles, for example, they manufacture their missiles with the warheads separate.
The warheads are actually under control of the Politburo troops.
Whenever you see the Politburo troops leave their barracks, grab some trucks, and start driving towards missile bases, that's an indication that they're getting serious.
And it's because they don't trust their general troops, their general line forces, with command and control over those weapon systems.
So, yeah, they have an extremely tight control.
The same thing applies in their air, space, and sea doctrinal analysis.
Okay, so this then answers the question why you believe this chop-off-the-head scenario is probably the right one to use with the Chinese?
Yeah.
One of the things that Americans have a hard time dealing with is a problematic understanding of how to fight Other nations based on their social structure.
And again, that's something that we had to factor in.
We've always had this question, why, for example, when the Israelis come up to combat with extremely numerically superior forces on the other side, were they were able to prevail so handily?
Well, the reason for that is they can find a fight, essentially, in what they call a combined warfare doctrine.
Their air force, their army, Operates and trains together all the time.
It's a classic democracy setup.
In a third world or totalitarian regime, you can't do that.
If you're a brutal dictator, you don't want your air force generals sitting down and talking with your army generals because one day they might decide to stage an election.
And that's something that we found out, and this is the case in point of the Iraqi wars.
The Iraqis had a tremendous armed forces with some very advanced equipment.
But instead of fighting in a combined arms doctrine, it was just a bunch of guys driving tanks and a bunch of guys flying planes and sort of independently doing so.
Have you read Tom Clancy's latest on General Franks and how he commanded the Desert Storm War?
No, I haven't.
You should.
You'd find it fascinating.
It goes way into doctrine.
It's absolutely fascinating.
I still have one problem, though, with everything we've discussed, and that is The political side of it.
The American people would not allow George Bush to, you know, toss around a few beheading conventional weapons while Los Angeles was in smoldering radioactive ruin.
I just don't think the American people... I know that George Bush knows he couldn't get away with that politically, don't you think?
Well, you know, once again, the alternative Yes.
Is to lose.
If you take out a city of theirs in retaliation, then it won't matter if we take out their military structure.
Their people will be solidified much like ours would be.
Oh, they destroyed Shanghai or something like that.
Yes, but what I'm saying is George Bush would have no choice but to retaliate in mass.
Take it all out.
The military, civilian, everything.
You know, L.A.
disappearing.
That would justify that kind of action.
It certainly would, but again, as I pointed out, there's the knee-jerk reaction, and then there's the winning combination.
It's a bloody cold business warfare in this case.
Yes, but once they take out Los Angeles, you couldn't for one second imagine they're not prepared, in fact, probably in progress and ready to take out many more cities.
So you would just Hit them with all you had, and you'd probably want them to know that as doctrine.
Hold on, Charles.
We're coming toward the top of the hour.
Well, this is rough stuff indeed.
So I guess I'll serve out my usual warning.
This is rough stuff.
If you can't handle it, turn the radio off.
I'm Art Bell.
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Coast AM with Art Bell.
Charles Smith is my guest, and we've been discussing exactly that.
War.
Hot-blooded war with China.
for if you listen to charles perhaps the possibility of war with china will be
right back the
once again charles smith uh... a rough customer a Charles, welcome back.
Thank you.
Charles, what makes you think that we would defend Taiwan?
If it came down to it, I mean, from, not that I'm looking at things as a Chinese, well, yes I am.
I'm trying for a second to look at things as the Chinese do.
They feel that they have a historical claim to Taiwan.
They feel Taiwan should be in their sphere of influence.
From their point of view, you can see how they and why they feel about Taiwan the way they do.
I'm not sure we'd defend it.
Are you?
Well, it's when we start getting into that question that it makes war more likely, not less.
But it's a necessary... I mean, you can't just avoid it, would you?
Well, once again, the one way to prevent a war In fact, the best way to prevent a war is what we refer to as deterrence.
Yes.
And, you know, for example, there are those such as presidential candidate Kerry, who's made it clear that we wouldn't.
And, you know, we can counter that with the current law standing in the books, which says that we will.
So your view, your opinion, is that we should defend Taiwan.
Yes, and there are a couple of reasons for this.
The first and foremost is we may not have a choice.
You're right about that.
I mean, if they blow up L.A., then all bets are off in my mind.
But, you know, there's many alternatives much short of that.
Once again, our problem here is the intricate, just like World War I, the intricate ties of defense relationships.
The Japanese and the Taiwanese have a very intricate and closely tied military relationship.
In order for China to step off onto Taiwan, they would immediately confront Japanese forces, which of course are tied to us by a strategic and defense relationship embodied in treaty.
In order for them to defend Taiwan against any potential saving force from the U.S.
Navy, The Chinese would have to attack our bases in Guam and Okinawa.
They may not have to do those with nuclear weapons.
We may be faced with nuclear weapons at sea only.
Well, there's a lot on Okinawa.
I lived there 10 years.
I know the most.
And, you know, scattered up and down that island.
I mean, it's 2 to 12 miles wide and 60 some odd miles wide.
It's a big island.
It's just military end-to-end, pretty much.
So, they would have to pretty much destroy Okinawa.
Well, you know, once again, we're referring to the Chinese Intermediate and Short-Range Ballistic Missile Force, which they have a tremendous advantage because we don't have any.
Right.
I'm not saying they couldn't do it.
I'm just saying they would pretty much have to destroy the island.
And again, you know, I keep coming back to The political side of it, if they destroyed Okinawa... They would be confronting us directly, yes.
Well, it's a total act of war, period.
Right.
Now, here's one of the scenarios that we feared.
The Chinese currently have 550, 600 short-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles basically located in the Fujian province, pointed at Taiwan and Okinawa, Japan, etc.
Let's say they lob off three or four hundred of these aimed exclusively at Taiwan.
Just a rain of missiles, non-nuclear.
Now keep in mind, because of the Western technology with strap-down inertia and laser-ring gyro systems that we saw during the 1990s, these things are extremely accurate.
You're saying they start all this with a rain of non-nuclear weapons on Taiwan.
Precisely.
Then it's immediately followed by a blockade.
Warships and submarines sortie out and surround the islands, daring anybody or anything to go past.
Well, one of our carrier groups, probably several, would be challenging that rather quickly.
Right.
Then the scenario starts coming down to the Chinese using satellite-based technology would try to target our carriers with their long-range fighter aircraft, the SU-30s, And their long-range ballistic missiles that could reach out, and these are intermediate-range systems, such as the DF-15, 11, DF-21, could be nuclear-tipped, but maybe not.
Yeah, but gosh, Charles.
You see how this accelerates?
I do, and that's sort of my argument, that no matter how you begin to game it out at the very start, It so quickly has to go all nuclear, and would go all nuclear, and almost all those games end up the same way.
Well, you know, here's the other alternative, as we're continuing out.
So far, let's say no nukes have been flung.
It's all conventional.
Keep in mind that 50 or 60 of these ballistic missiles have also come down on Guam, striking Kadena Air Force Base, etc., causing extensive casualties.
Okay.
I don't see, at this point, with what you just described, I don't see how, at that point, it's non-nuclear.
At that point, it's nuclear on our side, if not theirs, in my opinion.
You know, going across that nuke line, even if you have either a superiority or inferiority in weapons, is a big, is a political decision.
It's not a military decision.
Yes.
So, so far, it's been strictly conventional.
In order for us to come forward, we're going to have to confront some of their nuclear-powered submarines.
We have submarine-on-submarine battle, we have surface warship battle, we have airstrikes, we have air combat.
All this is still non-nuclear.
Meanwhile, we have massing from the mainland, 900,000 troops on amphibious vehicles and in aircraft.
Pointing themselves and landing in major force on the shores of Taiwan.
Now, you and I don't foresee that as a potential scenario, as a likelihood.
The Chinese, on the other hand, the Chinese military, may have no alternative but to do this.
And the reasoning behind that is, do they want to be in power tomorrow?
Think of the Falklands.
The reason why the Argentinians went to war over the Falklands was not because of the Falklands, But it was because they were so unpopular at home, they had no alternative but to start a foreign war.
Yes.
Now, that scenario is very potential, a likelihood, with the Chinese military and the Chinese government.
All right, well now, as you have been doing very effectively, I would like to do the same to you, and that is offer a counter scenario.
And that is that some of these things that you're complaining about are the very things that won't let all of this happen.
And let me explain.
We are economically in the process now of converting China into a richer nation.
The factories are in It's incredible in China, what they're doing economically in China is incredible and it's so incredible that at some point the Chinese will, oh I don't know, begin to get conservative because of what they've got.
It's a natural process, Charles, this conservatism as you begin to get to be a wealthier nation.
That's when the whole MAD scenario is more likely to be thought out carefully, don't you think?
In other words, as we make them economically more prosperous, and we are doing that.
Well, what you're referring to is called the engagement theory.
Yes.
That theory has been in place since the early 1990s.
It beats the alternative.
Well, keep in mind when we came up against the Soviet Union, we opted not to go the engagement policy.
In the case of China, we did.
And the theory there is that they will be nicer as we trade with them.
The capitalism will become a way of enticing them not to be nasty or belligerent on the international or nationally, even to their own people.
Well, it's already happening, though, to some degree.
Actually, if you examine this, What we've done is we've taken China from the agrarian communist society, and what we're looking at now is actually a national socialist regime, better known as a fascist regime.
They believe in personal ownership, but it's only in the hands of a limited few.
So now we're looking at a fascist state, a modern, capable, Very technically, as well as militarily savvy, with extremely good technology, but still a very brutal totalitarian regime.
Now, if you're a regime leader, and you're given the alternative, I'll be in power tomorrow, or I won't be in power tomorrow, you'll very soon start echoing the return to the motherland Granted, if there is that sort of threat to the Chinese government.
There is.
Well, okay, articulate that.
Well, as reviewed by the latest CIA report, the much maligned agency that seems to have had problems with its intelligence, their estimate is that China is going to go one of two ways, implode or explode.
And part of that is because of the totalitarian regime and its inability to deal with technology.
Much like the Soviet Union, information control to your individual citizens is difficult in the modern age.
Getting harder all the time.
Precisely.
But that doesn't mean that these regimes will not try to do so, as we have seen with their locking up of thousands of dissidents, cracking down through the internet, etc.
The Chinese military and the CMC and the CCP, the Central Communist Party, is having much more of trouble dealing with the local people who would like to have more freedom.
Well, again, if you're a totalitarian regime faced with that kind of internal threat, What you'll attempt to do is create an external threat, and if we are to go by the return to the motherland doctrine, as we have seen them go from Macau to Hong Kong, now Taiwan, if China wishes to recreate her empire as it was stolen from them by the Western powers, then you have to keep in mind that Genghis Khan was stopped at the gates of Warsaw.
Maybe you can explain to me, if you'd take a second, since Tiananmen Square, the United States actually gets very little news of the internal dynamic situation in China between the people and the government.
Since Tiananmen, we haven't heard much, and that causes most people in the world to conclude, well, the government since Tiananmen Is pretty firmly in control of what's happening.
Are you saying that's not so?
Oh, absolutely.
When we go down to some of the local levels, what we've seen happening is individuals outing corruption and local communist officials.
Those individuals themselves are imprisoned for doing so.
That has caused quite a bit of friction between the local governments and the central government itself.
We're not necessarily talking about the capitalist society.
Again, you have to keep in mind that when we start talking about money and flows of money here, there is a very limited class of extremely wealthy, and then there's everyone else.
And therein lies one of the biggest problems that the Chinese and their distribution of wealth and reduction of technology.
Again, when this information flows, when we're talking about specific freedoms such as religious or economic freedoms, when they come into conflict with local party control centralized in Beijing, Beijing has a tendency to send in the troops, the People's Armed Police, which essentially is their state police system.
An arm of the Chinese army, better known as the PAP.
You know, like for the 2008 Olympics, they're in the process of rounding up tens of thousands of individuals in and around Beijing whom they feel may cause a problem, and they're taking them out of their homes forcibly and resettling them somewhere else in the country in order So they can show to the world that they're a peaceful communist society.
Why do they want to show us that?
Well, you know, if you don't, if it's unstable, if there are political problems, then you don't have investment.
You don't have deals done?
Yes, but I guess between the lines you're telling me how important that investment, how important those deals done, how important all of that has become to the Chinese, which takes me back to my original argument that we are converting them.
The engagement is working.
Well, therein goes the point that the Rand Corporation report that I forced out of the U.S.
Commerce Department You made it very clear, when you're talking about this kind of state, you're referring to communist generals, in this case, running corporations, ministers in the government, CEOs.
These guys are like the old warlord days.
Whenever they cut a deal, they slice a bit of it out for their Swiss bank account, they buy foreign luxury automobiles, they throw lavish parties, and they pay very large bribes.
So, in some aspects, this has not changed since before World War II and going all the way back to the origins of the Chinese government.
The warlord aspect of this still exists.
And profit is an extreme motivation.
And we have made use of that profit motivation.
But there are limitations to that profit motivation.
But at some point, the economics of a country overwhelm The politics of a country, or control the politics of a country.
It's a natural process.
That's what we're depending on with this engagement.
And it does seem to be happening.
So you can't rule out the possibility it will be a success and they'll back away from conflict because they'll be protecting what they've got.
Basically, you're making the same arguments that were made during the 1930s about Italy and Germany.
And the problem, as I've just pointed out, is The totalitarian regimes will utilize the technology to enhance their military and then look beyond their borders to retain power.
And that's where we have this return to the motherland theme and that's the exact quote.
Can you really show that there is a person in place who would be equivalent to Hitler?
We don't necessarily have to have one You can't call him anything brilliant like Adolf Hitler.
Even a total mindset among those who control the switches, whatever.
An example.
In 1979, China went to war with Vietnam.
They did not go to war with Vietnam because there was a border dispute between Vietnam and China.
They went to war with Vietnam because the Vietnamese We're in the process of overthrowing the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who were backed by the Chinese.
So, the Chinese have shown the ability and capability of being able to impose their will beyond their borders for a political objective, and going to war to do so.
And therein lies, again, the return to the motherland theme.
One of these, this nationalistic theme that we've seen them broadcast.
You'll note, once we get beyond Taiwan, now we're talking, there's already discussion, there's already things that have been published by Beijing saying that the ancient Chinese empire extended below the current parallel in Korea all the way, literally, to the tip.
One of the reasons why they produced that study, and the speculation is from those who are China watchers, is if Kim Jong-il and his government suddenly collapse, the Chinese can step in and go all the way to the border, claiming this is part of their own original motherland.
Alright, hold it right there, Charles.
We're at the bottom of the hour.
Scary stuff, indeed.
As we all know, the weapons are out there.
You know, when you're discussing the will to use them, then that's something else altogether.
And it sure sounds like they have the will.
From the high desert in the middle of the night when we do things like this, you're listening to Coast to Coast AM.
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Do you ever find yourself missing the Cold War?
You know, back in the days when it was Russia and the United States and we had The overwhelming ability to totally and utterly destroy each other, and that was really the end of that.
And that did end that in the end.
They went broke.
Trying to keep up.
Well, I don't know.
Now... I mean, we all longed for the day when that would be over.
Now it's over.
We're in that day now.
But... Are we happy to be there?
Are we in a better place than we were then?
And it sure doesn't sound like it.
Once again, Charles Smith.
Charles, I wonder, let's see, you've got your website up, certainly.
You haven't written a book, so... Well, I have one in with the publisher now.
Oh, you do?
Oh yeah, it should be out before the election.
And what, pray tell, are you writing about?
Uh, gee, I wonder what.
The title of the book is Deception, and it covers the 1990s and basically all of these military deals documented Literally right down to the bottom line with China, Russia, and others.
Basically the sale of American technology, which is being turned around and pointed right back at you and me.
And I document the sale, who it was, where it was, what they were selling, and then how it's been turned from its plowshare into a sword.
Alright, back to that sword.
In here, one of the things you seem to want to talk about is what you think The Chinese timetable for war with the United States and the invasion of Taiwan.
I guess you believe they're going to be concurrent.
What's their timetable, do you think, for doing this?
Well, there was some speculation that they may be stepping off as early as 2005.
And that's scary, because it's not all that far away.
Of course, Americans and Chinese think in two different terms and timelines.
We're generally, okay, what's happening tomorrow morning and what happened yesterday I could care less about.
The shortest time frame the Chinese work with is generally five years.
The numbers, on the other hand, is what drives combat.
Napoleon once said that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.
The logistics, the actual numbers of equipment, men, missiles, Landing aircraft and generation pointed to 2008 time frame.
One of the reasons why I say that is, for example, in the ballistic missile realm, the Chinese are aiming at a 1000 missile force, short range, medium range, long range.
We know that because we can count the number of Revetment or buildings that they have put together to house the missiles and the warheads.
We can see that by satellite.
You don't build an empty building and just leave it there.
It's an expensive proposition, especially if you're guarding it with your political troops.
So where they are right now is around six to seven hundred missiles, and at their current build rate you're looking at around 2008, which is again their Olympics time frame.
That's when they'll have The absolute numbers with the capability of being able to throw themselves, and the landing craft building rate sort of supports that as well.
They are in the process of building large numbers of air-cushioned landing craft vehicles.
We're not talking about something small.
I'm referring to something that can carry four to six tanks each in a total.
We're talking about lots of troops and equipment.
And we're not talking about, you know, 10 or 20, we're talking about 300 or 400 of these things.
Well, Charles, do you think that we're, and apparently you do, it seems to me that communicating to the Chinese that we'd be willing to have a war with them, that would be a limited nuclear war.
For example, that we would stand for the demolition of Los Angeles or the Hawaiian Islands or even Okinawa.
That we would stand for that without total retaliation and we would be willing to engage in some smaller thing.
It doesn't seem like that's something we'd do under the table or above the table or any way at all.
It seems like our response to them on destroying a U.S.
city or a state would be total annihilation.
And I think that is our position, is it not?
Well, let's go to this other aspect of it.
But first, let's at least answer that.
Is that our current position?
No.
It's not?
Definitely not.
What is our current policy position?
Our current policy position would be to fight a war and win with the lowest number of casualties, both civilian and military.
The point that I'm trying to say here is, yeah, sure, they might take out Los Angeles, but The CMC boys, the men who ordered it and carried it out, won't be there to see the end.
We may not need to take out huge populations in basically a fruitless knee-jerk reaction, and that's the kind of policy that we're currently working with.
It comes under RMA, Revolution of Military Affairs.
How to win a war Without literally destroying the other side or yourself in the process.
But how to win this war actually starts long beforehand.
It's called deterrence.
Again, one of the main reasons why there's a big question mark now over in Beijing is because they're looking at seven carrier battlegroups and did not anticipate that.
They actually embarrassed several of the major generals.
Now, there is a reason why we can mass seven carrier battlegroups.
That reason is Iraq.
Prior to the Iraqi War, we had three carrier battlegroups tied down in the Middle East all the time, and some six to seven hundred Air Force combat aircraft in Turkey and Saudi Arabia doing the Northern and Southern Watch thing.
Now that Iraq is Gone, we no longer have the requirement to carry these large battle group operations in the Persian Gulf and in the eastern portion of the Mediterranean.
Okay, I can buy that, sure.
So, the Navy has actually restructured themselves.
Expect to see a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier based in Pearl Harbor, the first time since World War II.
We've had a carrier battle group based out of Pearl Harbor.
We've essentially shifted our balance.
We've moved B-52s and we've actually run B-2s into Kadena and Okinawa.
That factor essentially has thrown the Chinese timetable off and it's actually at first made them belligerent.
There was that window of opportunity when we were Tied down with Iraq, that window seems to have closed on them much more rapidly than they anticipated.
Good.
Now there's a second area of deterrence, one that greatly concerns Beijing, is our national missile defense.
Much like with the Soviet Union, that's something that could bankrupt them, and it would certainly render their limited ballistic missile force somewhat impotent.
And, you know, if you don't think that it doesn't serve a purpose, those missiles that are being stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base are there to protect Los Angeles against something like this happening.
That sort of gives the, again, Chinese generals this thought, maybe it won't work.
Good.
And therein lies the point, in order to fight a war and win it, you fight it and win it before the first shot is fired.
Yes.
Deterrence.
Every time.
We didn't have that deterrence in the previous administration.
We did not have a commitment to a national missile defense.
In fact, we stuck with the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty, which was signed with the Soviet Union, which didn't even exist.
And the Russians were not abiding by it, because their S-300 systems are certainly ABM systems, and some of them are nuclear-tipped as well.
By the way, we tend to talk about The Russians retain a considerable nuclear force, but there's problems.
Major problems.
so it's no longer a threat but the fact is
there's an awful lot of by cbm's uh...
murdered and so forth uh... appointed in our direction right
russians retain a considerable nuclear force but there's problem
major problem like what
A real good example is...
During the last major naval exercise, which was staged earlier this year, the Russians had their frontline nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and their frontline, their top-of-the-line nuclear-powered battlecruiser participate in these exercises.
In order to get to the exercise area, their aircraft carrier had to be towed.
And after the exercise, the battlecruiser, formerly known as the Kirov, had to be put into port because, according to the top admiral in the Russian Navy, her reactors nearly exploded.
They've been maintained by conscripts for the past three years.
People have absolutely no idea what they're doing.
I understand their ICBM force is also getting right on the edge of Operability, you know, old age, that a lot of it is becoming obsolete and may not work.
The Russians are very well aware of that.
And they have tried to improve their systems such as the SS-27, the Topol-M, which is a very nasty ballistic missile.
But they've only been able to deploy a very limited number of these because of their financial constraints.
And to show you exactly how limited their finances are, this year is the first time in five years that the Russian Air Force took possession of any new aircraft.
And it was only one bomber.
Yeah, they've got their problems, alright.
But sometimes, Desperate times, as you mentioned earlier in another context, call for desperate measures, right?
Well, this is true, but we again see differences in deployment and capability.
The Russian nuclear submarine force is a hollow shell of what it used to be.
The main Russian weapons development Seems to be more oriented towards foreign sales than for domestic consumption.
Well, you may have heard me at the bottom of the hour.
As I listen to all of this, and of course we haven't even touched on terrorism yet, but it almost is enough to make one long for the Cold War days.
Maybe we remember them a little better than they were, and I went through the Cuban Missile Crisis and everything, but somehow Today's situation, when you describe it as you have been doing, seems worse than the Cold War.
Well... More dangerous.
Being a Cold War baby myself and having hidden under the desk.
Oh yeah.
You know, duck and cover.
I'm sure you're familiar with those words.
Yes, I did as well as everybody else.
And we laughed and giggled at them too because we knew that, you know, forget it.
It was a joke.
The other half of that, though, is having sat down with the Pentagon in the 1980s and fought World War III over and over and over again.
I had this tremendous respect for what we were looking at.
We had 5 million men from pole to pole, 4,000 combat aircraft, 2,000 ballistic missiles,
25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons.
We fought the battle in the Folda Gap and lost repeatedly.
The situation in Europe was dire during the early 1980s.
It was a dicey thing.
Sure, the bipolar world was much simpler in political terms, but when you're looking at 10,000 to 15,000 nuclear weapons in the first roll, That was frightening and that was backed up by what we saw in their exercises using live nerve gas to exercise their troops.
The Soviets frequently took extensive casualties among their own troops because they wanted to weed out the people that could not operate the equipment.
But now we've got a very poor former Soviet Union, very poor indeed, Their scientists are leaking and for sale, and for all we know, some nuclear weapons are for sale, so we might as well talk about that a little bit in conjunction with terrorism.
There have been all kinds of rumors lately, Charles, about nuclear weapons that are loose, you know, that have been purchased and may be in the hands of Al-Qaeda, or who knows who, that the leak Most of the terrorists have been accomplished.
You know anything?
Do you follow that?
Oh, absolutely.
I thought you might.
You know, I started out following the nuke theories back in the old days when I sat down across the table from Colonel Stanislav Lunev, the highest ranking defector from the Soviet Union.
Yes, I interviewed him.
Stan is an absolutely brilliant man.
So what do you think might be true right now about what's out there?
Well, speaking to my defense and security contacts, they're not necessarily as concerned about a nuclear weapon as they are about a chemical weapon.
And again, this is the logistics aspect of it.
In fact, I think Al-Qaeda may very well have been involved in what we call the old pig-in-the-poke routine.
Osama bin Laden may very well have already acquired a nuclear weapon, but the problem was nuclear weapons need Expert maintenance on a regular basis.
Otherwise, they quickly become unusable.
For example, the old backpack nuke thing.
There was all sorts of upset during the 1990s about hundreds of backpack nuclear weapons.
That's right.
Colonel Stan was very clear that the Russians did bring nuclear weapons onto American soil.
In the form of small backpack mini-nukes to be used by special forces teams operating here.
That made perfect sense.
And we, in essence, did find a cache of weapons in Europe that he had predicted we would find.
Well, the problem with, especially like with the lightweight and backpack nukes, the tritium decays very rapidly.
After about 24 months, The system itself is basically unusable.
You might be able to convert it into a dirty bomb, but that's about it.
You actually have to have it re-injected and reformatted and actually torn apart and then put back together by expert technicians who are familiar with the system.
Well, the person who would be forking out the millions and millions to buy something like this, they would probably know that, wouldn't they?
You would think, but they may not.
Oh, we can buy one off the shelf.
And then all we have to do is roll it in the truck and set it off.
And then when they get ahold of it, they discover lo and behold, it ain't gonna work.
Now a chemical weapon, as we have found, that's much more like a can of Raid.
You can put it on the shelf for 40 years, pull it off, and it's almost as potent as the day it was made.
It doesn't take a lot of expertise to use it.
It doesn't take a lot of expertise to maintain it.
You don't necessarily have to know anything about the weapon.
All you have to know is essentially how to detonate it or set it off correctly.
In the case of the terrorists in Iraq with the sarin gas shell, they didn't know how to set it off right.
So there is some expertise required, but it's not nearly as formidable as a nuclear weapon.
And for every one potentially loose nuke in the former Soviet Union, There are probably a hundred chemical weapons that could be easily smuggled out or bought that will work, like VX or VR or some even worse aspects.
Remember, the Soviets were very good with nerve gas.
And I think that's one of the things that So you think there may be nukes out there, but they may be duds if they are possessed by, okay?
If they don't use them quickly, they will become duds.
All right, hold it right there.
When we get back, we're going to open the phone lines.
Boy, this has been some rough stuff.
My guest is Charles Smith, and well, you can hear what we're talking about.
out if you have questions that's why we're here I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm not a fan of the way you
talk, but I'm gonna try to get it right.
I'm not a fan of the way you talk, but I'm gonna try to get it right.
She's a lady, she promised you heaven, will you ever win?
She is like a cat in the dark, and then she is the darkness.
He came from somewhere back in the long ago.
Santa Belle the fool, don't she try hard to recreate what had yet to be created
Once in her life, she musters a smile for his nostalgic tear
Never coming near what he wanted to say, only to realize It never really was, she had a place in his life
He never meant her good, he cries As he rises to her apology, anybody else would surely know
But you're welcome, oh, you see The wise men, wise men are welcome
To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033.
line is area code 775-727-1222. To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll-free
at 800-825-5033. From west of the Rockies, call Art at 800-618-8255.
International callers may reach Art Bell by calling your in-country Sprint Access
number, pressing Option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903. From coast to coast and
worldwide on the Internet, call toll-free 800-825-5033. This is Coast to Coast AM with Art
Bell. My guest is Charles Smith, and he's talking about doctrine in which a war can be
fought, maybe even a nuclear war, in a limited way. And he's going to talk about the doctrine
of doctrine. So, Charles, welcome And I'll tell you, man, that gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Except for the Steves out there.
Steve fast-blasts me from a location he refuses to admit.
He says, I'd thank anybody who takes out L.A.
What a... Well, I can't say that in the air.
Anyway, he says it's not a nice place.
And he thinks people would agree with him.
No, that's just not true, Steve.
Most people disagree with you, and most people would turn China into glass.
That's the majority of them I'm getting.
We'll be right back.
Well I always want to give a, you know guests are not paid to come on here so I always want
to give them a chance to plug their book and it's not, a book not yet born, right Charles?
Thank you.
Charles?
Yes, that is correct.
I'm sorry, I had my switch on mute so you wouldn't hear me coughing, hacking, and wheezing.
I wasn't listening anyway.
It should be out by election.
It is from Pine Lake Media.
The book's name is Deception, and I go into detail covering the kind of exports, the companies that took place during the 1990s to China, to Russia, and to other places.
We do dedicate whole chapters to individuals left out of other books.
Such as my life by a nameless person who doesn't come to mind at the moment.
That's alright.
You know, I do mention things like the Lipo Group and John Wong.
I mean, Johnny Wong, for example, was really more into arms and arms trade than anything else in the Commerce Department.
Very few people know that.
Alright, listen, hold tight.
I want now to allow the audience to ask you questions.
Fair away!
Alright, well here it comes then.
First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Charles Smith.
Hello.
Hello, Mr. Smith.
I've been to China Great Wall Industry Corporation and been through the production plant for the Long March rockets.
I would agree with you that China is very, very dangerous.
They're very serious people.
And we would be at great peril to take them less at their word.
However, I don't believe that the threat is from nukes.
I would say you need to look at what they have said.
In particular, two senior colonels in the PLA wrote a book called Unrestricted Warfare.
This presents a doctrine which is a little different from let's go toe-to-toe with the U.S.
Which the Chinese have been, like everybody else, watching what's happened in the Middle East.
And a good-sized army went down in weeks.
And as a result, they will believe that we will target their command and control, as we did in Iraq.
And they will believe that it's a nice idea to have the nukes and have everything aimed at Taiwan.
But unless they believe that we are otherwise engaged, I don't believe they'll go for the I believe that they will use means to weakness, such as were suggested in unrestricted warfare.
I'd like to hear your... In other words, anything but the nukes to get at us, right?
Yeah, I agree with the caller.
This is what we refer to as asymmetrical warfare.
I'm very familiar with unrestricted warfare.
In fact, I helped translate some of it.
The point of that book is that they are already at war with us.
They're using economic and political means to weaken us.
They will use terrorist incidents, proxy war by supporting independent movements such as Al-Qaeda, and that was actually mentioned in the book, noting the 1993 attack, and mentioned Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in particular.
Proxies such as Pakistan and North Korea to pin us down, to cause us to disperse our forces.
The economic war, such as pegging their currency at well below the actual rate to make their exports better, weaken our economy and our resolve.
So, I'd actually suggest to call or look at a report by the U.S.-China Commission They also mentioned Assassin's Mace, which is essentially a new physical doctrine for the PLA to use asymmetrical warfare systems, attacks behind the line, assassinations, advanced technology such as designer biological weapons, weapons designed specifically to disable our space-based
Weapons and navigation and reconnaissance.
The obvious point of warfare is never go force on force, which is something that we've been talking about tonight.
It's a losing proposition.
You always put force on weakness, and they feel that by pressing at our weak points, that they may very well be able to win a conflict with the United States.
A wild card liner on the air with Charles Smith.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi.
Yes, I had read a while ago that there were actually border raiders, criminals, not politicos, going from North Korea into some Chinese villages on the Chinese-North Korean border.
And apparently even the Chinese are starting to have problems with the North Koreans.
My question is, if the North Koreans were to kick up and were to nuke anything in the West, How would the Chinese react to us taking a forced intervention?
Would they take matters into their own hands and use it as an excuse to roll down to the 38th parallel?
Alright, damn good question.
If the North Koreans got crazy, as the caller suggests, what would the Chinese position be?
The official Chinese position is taken by General Cao, the Defense Minister, the number one commander That North Korea to the Chinese Army is like lips to teeth.
There are some rubbing points between China and North Korea politically and economically, as you pointed out, raiders, and then there's been a large influx of refugees, which caused problems on the political side.
On the military side, there is an extremely close level of cooperation and equipment exchange.
So the North Korean military and the Chinese People's Liberation Army basically see eye-to-eye about everything, and if the North Koreans were to get crazy and do something, do not be surprised to see them backed up by the PLA, just as they were in the 1950s.
We've actually put too much stock.
This administration has placed an awful lot of stock into Beijing, pressuring North Korea to come to terms at the table, and the Chinese have virtually done nothing.
And don't expect them to.
It's not economically viable because they make a lot of money off these things.
Believe me, there are Chinese generals who make money off refugees, and I'm not kidding.
There are no examples, Charles, of the United States through Beijing getting North Korea to pull back a little bit on some of what it's saying or doing.
Um, the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which is the political arm, makes those noises.
But if you go to the People's Daily, you see the daily output from the DPRK indicating that they're not going to budge an inch.
So, you know, we haven't seen them stop oil shipments.
We haven't seen them place any pressure on the North Korean military to be less belligerent or stop their nuclear weapons programs, short of just Saying, okay, come to Beijing, sit down at the table, and we'll all talk.
All right.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Charles Smith.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi.
All right.
I have a comment regarding the chemical, biological, and nuclear threat regarding Islamic terrorists.
I heard a few years ago, shortly after 9-11, there was like a news leak that if anything like that happens on American soil, America has targeted Mecca for nuclear destruction.
Is that anything to that, Charles?
Um, not really.
And the reason for that is that, you know, when you're talking about a terrorist incident along those lines, the return address becomes ambiguous.
You may be virtually playing into the hands of Osama bin Laden by doing something like that, causing a A general uniting and uprising of the mass Muslim world against America just because some crazed idiot set a nerve gas bomb off, say, in the middle of a football stadium and killed 90,000 people.
So, the return address is much more ambiguous.
That's a big problem.
And, you know, once again, the difficulty that we have being able to pin back That's what 9-11 was about.
We knew that Afghanistan was the first place to stop on the trade list.
The flip side to that is that in the case of an attack against the U.S.
soil, unless we get an actual address and individuals, we may be standing here with lots of dead people and nowhere to go.
Charles, we've covered a lot of territory tonight, but I really have not asked you about how you feel about the Iraq War, what we have done, what we are doing, and where we are going with it from here.
How do you view it at this point?
The polls, taken of the American people now, are beginning to turn Albeit by a percentage point or two to the negative.
In other words, you know, just 49, 48 percent or less supporting what's going on.
How about you?
Well, actually, where we are, I figured, is about where we would be.
Actually, the Bush administration is kind of taking an Afghanistan tactic to turn over the sovereignty We're not necessarily giving it to people that we agree with politically or socially.
In some cases, maybe even militarily, like leaving al-Sadr alone.
Leaving him for the Iraqis to deal with.
Speaking in military terms, I believe it was the right thing to do, simply because We were pinning down a good one-third of our armed forces due to Saddam Hussein and the threat.
So in other words, your attitude was, go ahead and get it over with.
We'd been messing around for ten years.
We had six to seven hundred combat aircraft in the region, three carrier battle groups.
We were spending billions of dollars.
Now we have aircraft Back home in the United States that haven't been here for the last decade.
I mean the AWACS airplanes that were stationed in Saudi Arabia.
They've been there since 1991.
But a week or so ago on the evening news, CBS I believe, I saw a U.S.
General in front of Congress for the first time ever That I've ever seen it, admit that we are stretched too damn thin.
Now, what of that?
The Army, yes.
Okay?
And the reason for that is because of manpower requirements and garrisoning on the ground.
We're not talking about high tech here.
Do you think that this manpower shortage after the election, Charles, is going to turn into a draft?
No.
The U.S.
military is thoroughly and 100% opposed to a draft.
A draft army is a lousy army.
A volunteer army is a professional army.
And there is a great deal of difference in their performance.
And we've seen that repeatedly over the last decade or so.
High-tech weapons, good pay, good soldiers makes for a good army and good protection.
A draft army, as we've witnessed with the Russians, With the Chinese, it's a problematic thing.
You have a person who's looking forward to getting out the second that they get in.
So, no, the military is adamantly opposed.
If anything, they would like to see an increase to encourage more people to come in.
Well, I was going to say, what about the sheer numbers required?
If we really are that thin, Charles, then we've got to have a way of increasing the numbers, if not the draft, then something else.
Army has had a great deal of difficulty dealing with this, and that's because they've had to dedicate so many troops.
But then again, we've got so many commitments that we need to get out of, like NATO and Europe.
We've got thousands of troops in Germany.
What are they doing?
They're drinking beer.
What are they protecting?
Good German beer, too.
Right, they're protecting the beer.
Okay.
You know, we've had troops that are... Well, now, of course, we have used troops from Germany, for example, in Desert Storm.
We had a lot of troops from Germany that were used.
That's correct.
And once again, we have to face the new reality of the situation.
Our troops in NATO, for example, are basically throwing rocks at each other, and they're stationed there for political reasons, not for military reasons.
We've seen Korea, for example, where we're drawing down the absolute number of troops in Korea.
We don't need 37,000 troops on the line in Korea.
The South Korean military is very adept and they're quite capable of defending themselves.
They're extremely capable.
And again, the only reason the South Koreans are concerned about us drawing it down is economic and political, not military.
There's an old doctrine that says all we really need would be enough to be the trigger.
Tripwire.
Tripwire.
Okay, tripwire.
And maybe not even that.
Because once again, as we put on display here, there's two different types of war to deal with.
The actual physical combat of a major war would be fought with our advanced weapons, our air power, as we've witnessed, our naval capability, missiles, tomahawk, etc.
That's the high tech and extremely expensive end.
We've seen most of that relieved of its duty in the Middle East.
That's why we've been able to do a force restructure pointing towards the Pacific in a deterrence prevention mode.
The flip side is the other, as garrisoning in Afghanistan or in Iraq, the point there, and I think this is going to be, you'll see this over the course of the next two years, is we're going to be turning this back over to the Iraqis to deal with for themselves.
It's their country.
Us standing around out there is just providing targets.
So this manpower problem with the army that they're facing Still, if you were a general and you were in charge of, okay, what do we do now?
Do we do a draft?
No.
Okay then, how do we get more numbers into the army?
seriously through the nineteen nineties anyway still if you were a general and
you were in charge of ok what we do now do we do a draft no ok then uh... how do
we get more numbers into the army what would you well what i would do is i go to our political leaders and
say you know i got these eight thousand guys hanging around kosovo
We were throwing rocks at each other.
They should be out there in the fray.
I've got these 30 or 40,000 troops hanging around Poland and Germany.
Excuse me, they're not going to be going into combat any time soon.
We could cut them in half.
We have so many carry the pizza missions that these guys have been on.
through the last decade that we've dedicated whole blocks of forces,
we need to pull them out.
The other thing I'd look at the political structure and say is,
okay, improve the pay and living capability of my troops, improve that recruiting asset,
that I can go out on the physical market and say I need the best
and I'm willing to pay for it.
And surprisingly enough, there are a lot of people who like that idea.
Oh sure, um sure.
I wonder if it would attract sufficient numbers to get us over the short-term crisis here.
Well, once again, the short-term crisis is one of those things, as I pointed out.
You've got these guys carrying the pizza, hanging around like in the European theater.
Now, there are other points.
For example, our troops in the Philippines.
But we just closed a big, you know, most of our bases there.
Hold tight, Charles.
We're at the bottom of the hour.
There does seem always an appropriate time for a song like this.
And this is definitely that.
I'm Art Bell.
Good morning!
All our times have come.
We're fucked down and down Caesars don't fear the reaper
No, due to wind, the sun or the rain We can be like this
Come on baby Don't fear the reaper
Baby take my hand Don't fear the reaper
We'll be able to fly Don't fear the reaper
Baby I'm your man La la la la la la la la
Hey hey hey La la la la la la la
Ain't got no trouble in my life No foolish dream to make me cry
I'm never frightened or worried I know I always get by
I heat up, heat up, cool down When something gets in my way I go around it
Don't let life get me down Gonna take it the way that I found it
I'm out of here.
Music in me, I got music in me, I got music in me, yeah. I got music in me, I got music in me.
I got music in me, I got music in me They say that life is a circle
I'm ready the way that I found it Gonna move in a straight line
Keeping my feet heavy on the ground I need a break, a cool down
I got words in my head The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033.
line at area code 775-727-1295. The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033. From west
of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255. International callers may reach Art by calling your in-country
Sprint Access number, pressing option 5 and dialing toll free 800-893-0903. From coast
to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
Smith is the second is the third.
Is the second war gamer that I've interviewed, and I'll tell you something, war gamers are scary people.
we'll get right back to it i suppose it's uh... it's something that uh... you've got
to do charles i You've got to consider various ways that wars can be fought.
And I understand that that's necessary, but it's very chilling for most people like myself to listen to it, because it's almost like, oh, I don't know, it's almost like you're saying, yeah, it can be done.
Here's how we do it.
No, it doesn't have to be total suicide for everybody.
It can just be, you know, a few million here and there, and we'll work it out.
It's just a chilling thing to listen to.
Charles?
Alright, there you go.
Sorry.
I'm going to presume that you heard what I said.
I heard everything you said.
And, you know, that's one of the key points of this.
There are two basic aspects to this kind of gaming and gaming systems.
One is a training aspect to get people used to the equipment And the tactics necessary to employ it.
And the second part is the study aspect to determine, you know, at what level, what would happen?
How can we possibly avoid it?
What kind of weapons and systems do we need to acquire to be a deterrent to avoid going to battle?
Stealth technology was a real big aspect of our original gaming systems and Back in the 80s, before it was a buzzword.
And the idea was, we know it's expensive, but how many do we need?
How much?
How effective?
You know, is it just two very, very, very effective, extremely capable bombers, or 20 not so effective, but still capable systems that we can spread around and make use of?
And again, the entire aspect or point of this ...was to also get a general understanding of the mindset of the individuals that would be engaged in this, and how you can lead from one point to another, how you can go from conventional to nuke.
What would lure or tempt another side to think they could possibly win?
Well, while we're on this subject generally of intelligence, discerning mindsets and such, We've had a rather large intelligence deficit lately, certainly with regard to the pre-war intelligence.
I think it's generally believed, been apologized for in Great Britain, that it was all screwed up.
We didn't know what the real story was.
So how are we doing in that category?
I mean, I saw him suggest the other day, A new arm of government that would oversee the CIA, FBI, and all of them.
They're not reacting well to that, by the way.
The CIA interim director doesn't think much of that idea at all, as I didn't really imagine he would.
But, gee, our intelligence has been pretty crappy.
What do you think?
Well, our intelligence has been pretty crappy since the Vietnam War, when the CIA kept coming back and saying, gee, we have this RAND study here that shows that we'll be winning by Christmas.
Our intelligence has a tendency to be tainted by two aspects.
One is the social and the other is the political.
A real good example of tainted intelligence from the 1990s, it's sort of like an illumination of this entire affair.
The CIA put out a wonderful report in 1998 stating that North Korea would never, would not be capable of Constructing a ballistic missile to attack the United States for 10 to 15 years.
I remember that one.
Absolutely.
90 days later, Kim Jong Il operating by his own timetable.
Popped one off right over Japan and landed it off the coast of Alaska.
Terminal velocity 18,000 miles an hour.
Yes.
If it had been pointed in the right direction, it could have gone around the world.
No problem.
So the CIA director just responded, we don't need anything like that.
It's all been fixed since.
How should I feel about that statement?
Not only skeptical, but beyond skeptical when it comes to the big three, FBI, CIA, NSA.
The political hierarchy sees things in a different eye than the actual analysts and spies on the road.
The guys actually have their feet on the ground.
And that's because they want to taint their intelligence with their politics and their social That's one complaint right there that we don't have that many feet on the ground.
Is that accurate?
Yeah, one of the biggest problems with the human intelligence and the CIA is they're still fighting the old Cold War style that we can go up against al-Qaeda by hanging out at cocktail parties in Nigeria and Switzerland.
It doesn't work that way.
Okay, listen, a lot of people want to talk to you.
I could pepper you with questions, but first time caller line, your turn with Charles Smith.
Hello.
Hello.
Yeah, I'd like to ask you, Mr. Smith, if you would, if you'd address Chinese diversion and acquisition networks that are operating in the United States.
The Chinese currently operate some 2,000 front companies here in the United States.
These are actually Chinese Army-owned companies.
I want to put that caveat on there.
I mean, we're not talking about guys that may be nebulously attached to the Chinese Army.
I'm talking about directly owned and operated.
They acquire commercial as well as military intelligence.
They have the second largest commercial and military intelligence espionage operation in the U.S., followed only by France.
I'm sure you're shocked and surprised to find that the French have the largest Commercial espionage operation in the U.S.
I'm not surprised.
Basically, they are aimed at, one, making money, and two, obtaining intelligence on technologies and sciences that they would be willing to acquire.
How's the current status of our relationship with the French?
Oh, very strained.
To say the least, Jacques Chirac and our government clearly do not see eye to eye.
The French have taken a counter position.
A real good example is the French are currently proposing ending an embargo on arms sales to China.
So we may very well be facing French technology like Mirage jet fighters.
In fact, we are facing For example, in the new Yuan-class submarines, a French towed array sonar system.
So, we have the French already to thank for some of the advanced weapons systems that may very well be pointed at us, and that's not a comfortable feeling.
We've already gone through this once before with Iraq, so it's not a big deal for the Chinese to sell weapons to a brutal, totalitarian state.
It's a money thing.
Alright.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Charles Smith.
Hello.
Good morning, R. Charles.
Morning.
Is France an ally?
I think that's what I just asked, sort of.
I don't know.
Is France an ally, Charles?
Where in the spectrum would you put France?
The French are officially classified in our wargaming systems as what we refer to as grey assets, meaning they could be possessed by the other side, but we know about them.
Is France an ally?
The answer is no.
France is only an ally to Paris.
They're not even an ally to their European friends.
Be very careful about dealing with the French.
They've already entered into discussion, for example, to sell an aircraft carrier to the Chinese.
Again, not a good thing.
Is the French political stance any different, basically, than it ever has been, pretty much, in modern times?
Yeah, it is a little different these days.
Charles de Gaulle, although taking that very independent force-to-frap aspect, still had a counter to the Soviet Union, even though he had lots of interplay with them.
They were still in that orientation towards defending France, and that orientation was pointed towards the Warsaw Bloc, not us.
Do you miss the Cold War, Charles?
No.
No.
I grew up in the D.C.
area, okay?
I worked in the Pentagon, and, you know, right in the very dead center is this little park, and right there is a little hot dog stand, and the name of the stand during the Cold War days was the Ground Zero Cafe, and it was a reminder that we were in the crosshairs, that you had 25 minutes to live from launch to impact.
Anybody made a mistake, that was it.
Today is dangerous, yeah, but it's not nearly so.
Well, how should the people on Wilshire Boulevard feel?
Well, you know, I would be guarded, but optimistic, and that's why I view today considerably different.
Guardedly optimistic, huh?
Yeah, and there are good aspects, like the National Missile Defense.
I've been an ABM supporter for many years.
It made absolutely no sense.
Mutually Assured Destruction is a crazy idea.
And it certainly didn't inhibit the Wargamers from going nuke, as we examined in combat.
You know, once things start to get flying, as you pointed out, it's pretty hard to stop.
Oh, it is.
So, you know, the other aspect of it was, we did find that when we introduced that system on one side and not on the other, That was a great deal of detraction, deterrence, from even starting to step off.
Wargamers don't like MAD, because that's game over, right?
We found that most nuclear combat started at about 455 on a Friday afternoon, and you were going to a new project on Monday morning.
Well, I can buy that.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Charles Smith.
Hello.
Yes, hello.
Yes, Art, good to speak to you.
Charles, this is Mike in Nashville.
Listening to you on 1510 WLAC.
Yes, sir.
The French got all the wine.
That's what they intend to win the world with.
And Cordon Bleu, I guess.
And they're big players in the New World Order, you know, with Germany and the Netherlands and a few of the people from this country.
They would probably love to see the war that you're talking about this evening.
Actually, you just brought up a really good topic, Caller.
Charles, is there a new world order coming, or is the world in as much general disorder as it ever has been, and maybe even worse?
Well, I'm frequently reminded, whenever I hear the words, new world order, of Daddy Warbucks from World War I.
The same old themes keep popping back up.
And the first thing is money, money, money.
The New World Order is the same old world order which dates back to centuries.
The only thing that's changed was the technology has forced some changes.
You know generals don't like nuclear war because it puts them in the foxhole with you and me.
Yeah, where are all the big bankers at?
Right, and they don't like that.
That's where we go, wait a second, we need diplomacy, we need to talk about this.
In the case of the French and the Germans, this is a counter-world order.
They want to establish a Euro-order, or EU, or EU as I like to refer to it.
And in their case, like the Chinese military doctrine makes it very clear, they do not believe the Europeans would join in or even support a combat over Taiwan and in essence they anticipate continued and expanding trade even if they are in war with the United States with our former EU allies France and Germany.
One other thing I hadn't heard mentioned is Hong Kong.
You know Hong Kong had a big demonstration here the other day against the elections when they were turned over back to China.
Great Britain.
I don't know why Great Britain did that unless this was an agreement, like we turned the Canal Zone back over to Panama.
You know, something that they had to do.
But would there ever be any chance of Hong Kong allying with Taiwan?
You know, Hong Kong used to be a big manufacturer, too.
There used to be a lot of stuff you'd pick up that had Hong Kong in it.
Alright, let's convert that a little bit.
I was in Hong Kong prior to the transition, Charles.
How's it gone?
For the Communist Chinese with Hong Kong so far.
I think it's fairly obvious.
It hasn't gone very well at all.
The protests continue to expand.
The Chinese have actually reneged on their deals on local rule and self-governing.
The Hong Kong economy is tanked and the reason for that is fairly obvious because it's now under a The totalitarian regime, that doesn't mean that it makes a difference to the communist Chinese.
They've reinforced the garrison there, and currently are turning it into a navy base.
So, you know, the Brits were obliged by treaty to do that, and this was part of that return to the motherland theme that I referred to.
Hong Kong joining in with Taiwan is too late for that.
Yes.
Way too late.
Yes, too late.
Indeed, too late.
And they have very tight control over Hong Kong, correct?
Extremely tight control over Hong Kong.
I've noticed a big TV campaign recently, running on national TV, a comeback to romantic Hong Kong.
I mean, kind of a desperate What a wonderful vacation place we are.
Come and see the beautiful Hong Kong.
Been a lot of that on TV, Charles.
Yeah, and once again, I'm reminded of propaganda from the late 1930s.
You know, let's take a tour of the Ruhr, and remember the Staten Land, and it's so wonderful here in Prague.
In a way, Taiwan is like Danzig in 1938.
It's that final stepping point.
We want it.
And again, as you pointed out, the Chinese are very adept at their propaganda machine, portraying themselves as a benevolent, single-culture nation.
They are not By any means, either a single culture, nor are they benevolent.
It's an empire, much like the Soviet Union, with lots of ethnic minorities, some of them tolling in the hundreds of millions, that would very much like to get out from under Beijing.
Have you managed to travel through any of Communist China, Charles?
No.
I am unwelcome I would think that might be true.
I've traveled in Communist China, and I can tell you it's one hell of a scary place.
It really is scary.
On many levels.
Including the direct, holy mackerel, there's a lot of military guys with automatic weapons everywhere kind of scary.
Well, you know, there's also the neighborhood watch program, which is essentially if anybody steps out of line, you get reported and arrested.
Oh yes.
You know, there's also the little minor problems about if you post something on the internet that they don't like, you'll be arrested.
I've often wondered, and made mention of this to Harry Wu, the Chinese dissident, you know, look, the things that I investigate, I showed him some of the documents and he wanted some copies, and I mentioned to him that if I was doing this in his country, I'd be Well, I'm willing to accept that.
I wish we had more time.
We don't.
It has been fascinating having you on, Charles, and we will do it again.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Our time is up.
Thank you.
Thanks a million, in fact.
It was fascinating.
you'd be dead unwilling to accept that
uh... i wish we had more time we don't it has been fascinating having you on trials and we will do it again
i appreciate it thank you our time is up thank you thanks a million in fact it
was fascinating here's crystal with a far softer goodbyes on
I'm Art Bell from the high desert.
Indeed, have a good week.
Midnight in the desert, shooting stars across the sky.
This magical journey will take us on a ride.
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